“You think I’m blind, don’t you?” she said. “Well, I ain’t. Can’t see to sew no more or do nothing close, but far away, everything’s clear as day.”
“Tell me where the girl’s body was, then,” Frank challenged her.
She made a rude noise. “Right there,” she said, pointing, although she might have been pointing at anything. “Beside the porch, on this side, where the alley comes out.”
That much was true. Somebody could’ve told her that, of course. “Did you see who killed her?”
“I seen her with somebody, and then I saw she was laying there and not moving. Didn’t see her actually get killed. Had to use the chamber pot, you know.”
Frank didn’t know, of course. “Tell me exactly what you did see, then.”
“They said the girl was Chinese. That true?” she asked instead.
“Half-Chinese,” Frank corrected her. “Her mother is Irish.”
The old woman pulled a face. “Ain’t right, mixing races like that. What’s this world coming to?”
Frank imagined his mother would have the same opinion. “Couldn’t you tell she was Chinese?” he asked to test her.
She gave him another glare. “Not from up here. Can’t see faces plain. Neither can you,” she added with a toothless grin.
That was true, of course. “How do you know you saw the dead girl then?”
“Because the girl I saw was the one laying down there dead, is why. I could tell by her clothes. Her hair, too. Pitch black it was. Guess that’s from the Chinese blood.”
“All right,” Frank said patiently. “Just tell me—”
“I seen her down there before,” she continued, ignoring him. “I could tell it was her from the way she walked and from her dark hair. Never saw her before a couple weeks ago. New here. They said she married one of the boys from across the way.”
“Who keeps you so well informed?”
“My family,” she said, then cackled at Frank’s surprise.
“You think I live up here all by myself? I got a son, and he’s got a boy and two girls. They all got jobs. At least, most of the time. The girls, they work in a factory, and the boy and my son are draymen. There’s always work for a man can drive a wagon.”
“So they deliver the news to you up here?”
“The girls do,” she said. “My son and the boy, they don’t know nothing that goes on. The girls tell me what’s what.”
“And they told you about the Chinese girl, I guess.”
“Lord, yes! Ain’t every day we get a Chinese moving into the neighborhood. The girls said her eyes was funny looking, slanted like the Chinese even though she’s half-white. That true?”
Frank tried not to sigh. “Just tell me what you saw yesterday.”
The old woman huffed, insulted, but she cooperated. “I seen her come out on the back porch. She was sitting out there for a while. I thought that was funny because it’s too cold for sitting out, but she’d do that. She’d sit out there for the longest time.”
“You’d seen her there before?”
“Almost every day.”
“At the same time?”
“No, different times. Sometimes she’d stay out a long time, and sometimes she’d go back inside pretty quick. Maybe it was too cold for her.”
“She ever talk to anybody?”
“Not that I saw. People must’ve thought she was strange, her being Chinese and all. Nobody ever talked to her. Walked by like she wasn’t there. Sometimes they’d hurry, you know? Like they was afraid she’d do something to them.”
“Did somebody talk to her yesterday?”
“Oh, yeah. I saw it real plain. This fellow, he comes down the alley.” She pointed again. “She don’t look up at first. I guess she must’ve heard him coming, but she don’t look around. Why should she? Nobody takes an interest in her, so why should she take an interest in them?”
“But she says something to him?”
“He must’ve said something first. She sort of jumps like she’s surprised, and then she comes down off the porch to meet him.” She looked out the window, staring down as if she were seeing it all over again.
She must have known him, Frank thought. That would help a lot. “How long did they talk?”
“I don’t know. Not long. They started off civil enough, I reckon, but then they started in to fighting.”
“They were hitting each other?” Frank asked in surprise.
“No,” she said, waving away the very idea with one bony hand. “Arguing, I should’ve said. Having words.”
“How do you know if you couldn’t hear what they were saying?”
“I could tell. They started moving their hands around, like people do when they’re mad.” She illustrated, curling her knobby fingers into fists and shaking them in an unconvincing imitation of anger.
Still, Frank felt his excitement rising. She might actually be telling the truth! “Then what happened?”
“This went on for a couple minutes, and then he puts his arms around her.”
This didn’t make sense. “You mean he hugged her?”
The old woman pursed her lips as she remembered. “I thought that’s what he was doing. He had his back to me, and when he does that, I can’t see her no more. He’s in the way now, with her in front of him. I thought he was hugging her.”
“Now you’re not so sure?”
The old woman looked up at him apologetically. “When they told me she was dead, I started having my doubts.”
Frank gritted his teeth. “What happened after he started hugging her?”
“I didn’t see.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t see?” Frank asked sharply.
She winced but didn’t back down. “I had to piss! The girls don’t like it when I don’t make it to the pot, so I had to leave. I thought they was making up!” she defended herself. “How was I to know he’d kill her?”
She couldn’t have, of course. Frank swallowed down his frustration. If he frightened her, he wouldn’t get any more information out of her. “What did you see when you got back to the window?”
“I saw her laying there on the ground. The boy was gone, and she was on the ground. I thought that was real odd at first, but I never thought she was dead. Not for a while, at least. I thought maybe she fainted or something. But when she didn’t move, not even a little bit, I started thinking maybe she was dead.”
“Why didn’t you do something?”
“Like what?” she asked in surprise.
“Like get some help. Tell somebody what you saw.”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “How was I supposed to do that? I ain’t been out of this flat in two years or more. Can’t walk down the stairs, and if I could, I’d never get up them again. Next time I’m outside will be when they take me away to the cemetery.”
Frank swallowed down hard again, holding his temper with difficulty. “Do you know what time it was when all this happened?”
She glanced meaningfully around the room. People like her didn’t own clocks, she was telling him silently.
“Maybe you heard a clock strike outside,” he tried. The city was filled with tower clocks that chimed the hours to let people like her know the time.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe it struck three a little after I noticed her just laying there. I can’t be sure, though. The time just goes for me. Every day is pretty much like another, and every hour is, too.”
Frank was certain this was true. Once again he swallowed down his frustration. “I don’t suppose you’d recognize the man who killed her.”
She glanced out the window, silently reminding Frank of how far down it was to where they’d been standing. “I can tell you one thing, though. He was a Chinaman.”
Frank doubted very much she could be certain of this. “If you couldn’t tell she was Chinese from up here, how could you tell he was?”
“His clothes,” she said with obvious satisfaction. “He was wearing them baggy clothes
they all wear.”
“Are you sure?” Frank asked in amazement, trying not to let himself hope it would be this easy.
“Of course I’m sure, and that ain’t all,” she added, her sunken eyes glittering with glee.
“All right,” Frank said, willing to play along. “What else is there?”
“His hair,” she informed him smugly. “He had one of them long, black pigtails hanging down his back.”
Frank managed not to grin. He guessed he could let the O’Neal brothers go home now.
SARAH FOUND THE CHURCH EASILY. THROUGH HER WORK at the Prodigal Son Mission, she’d learned about other Christian charity groups in the city. She knew that at least two dozen churches were operating Sunday schools for the Chinese, to teach them the error of their heathen ways, and many of those churches also offered evening classes where volunteers helped the immigrants learn English.
“Are you here to volunteer?” an elderly lady asked Sarah when she stepped inside. The woman had been sitting at a table with a young Chinese man, apparently tutoring him, as others were doing with other Chinese men at the tables scattered around the large room in the church basement.
“I…I’m interested in finding out more about your classes,” Sarah said. It wasn’t a complete lie. “Is there someone I could speak with?”
“Oh, yes,” the lady assured her. “Mrs. Adkins. She’s the one who started the school. Wait here, and I’ll get her.”
Sarah gave her name and watched the woman scurry toward the back of the room.
While she waited, Sarah had an opportunity to observe the lessons in progress. Most of the students were younger men, some of them still in their teens. The oldest ones were probably no older than thirty. All of them were paying the strictest attention to their tutors, whether they were receiving individual attention or were part of a small group. Learning English was apparently serious business to them.
The tutors were far more diverse, however. Women outnumbered the men, two to one. The men were middle-aged or older, dressed in suits and boiled white shirts. The women varied much more greatly in age. The lady who had helped her appeared to be the oldest. Some of the others were obviously wealthy matrons, ranging in age from twenties to fifties, their tastefully fashionable gowns betraying their financial status. A few were younger, probably not yet married, and a couple appeared to be hardly out of the schoolroom themselves.
Mrs. Adkins was coming toward her from the back of the room, the elderly lady in her wake. She was about Sarah’s age, a handsome woman who had discreetly not worn any jewelry to adorn her simple outfit. Sarah’s experience told her that her dress had been custom made, however. Discreet or not, Mrs. Adkins was among the privileged few.
As she came closer, Sarah realized Mrs. Adkins was looking at her rather intently, and for an instant, Sarah’s guilty conscience pricked her. How could this woman know she was here under false pretenses? But then something else pricked her, a vague sense of recognition.
“Sarah?” Mrs. Adkins asked when she reached her. “Sarah Decker?”
Sarah needed another moment to study the other woman’s face. Then she remembered. “Corinne Fink!”
Both women laughed with the delight of finding an old friend unexpectedly after many years. Corinne gave Sarah her hand, and Sarah pressed it warmly.
“What brings you here?” Corinne asked.
“I wanted to learn more about the work you’re doing,” Sarah said, feeling not the slightest twinge of guilt because this was perfectly true. “Could you spare a few minutes for me?”
“Of course!” She looked around. “Thank you, Mrs. Ott,” she said to the elderly lady. “As you can see, Mrs. Brandt and I know each other quite well.” She turned back to Sarah. “There’s a small room right over here where we can talk.”
“I hope I’m not taking you away from your students,” Sarah said.
“Not at all. I have plenty of able assistants.”
Corinne led her into an adjacent room and closed the door so they wouldn’t disturb the students. The room was furnished with a table and several chairs, and they seated themselves across from each other.
“I should have remembered your married name,” Sarah said. “I was at your wedding.”
“And I heard about yours,” Corinne said with amusement. “You ran away with a poor, young doctor, I believe. Quite the scandal.”
“My parents have never forgiven me,” Sarah confirmed.
“Do you have any children?” Corinne asked.
Sarah managed a smile. “Tom and I never had any, and he died four years ago.”
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know.”
Sarah didn’t want to linger over that news. “Do you have children?” she countered.
Corinne brightened at once. “Yes, four. Three boys and a girl.”
“That’s wonderful! I’ve recently fostered a little girl from a mission down on Mulberry Street. I was doing volunteer work there, and I fell in love with her.”
Corinne nodded. “It’s easy to do. I even find myself falling in love with my students here.”
Sarah couldn’t hide her surprise.
“Oh, not romantically, of course,” Corinne hastened to explain. “The young men are so sincere, though, and so eager to learn. They want to better themselves, and they’ll do whatever they must.”
“How did you become involved in this work?” Sarah asked.
Corinne smiled knowingly. “You’re wondering how a woman with a husband and four children has time to do anything else. That’s what everyone wants to know. But you should know how it really is. The servants take care of everything in the house, and the children are in school most of the day. I can only go to so many teas before I die of boredom. I wanted to do something important.”
Sarah nodded. She understood completely. “But why this?”
“A missionary visited our church. He’d been in China for twenty years, and he spoke so passionately about the Chinese people. He introduced a young man who had come to America and studied medicine so he could return to his people and help them better themselves. We wanted to help, too, so the church opened a Sunday school for the Chinese here in the city. We quickly realized their greatest need was to learn English, though, so we started this school, too.”
“And you’re in charge?” Sarah asked in amazement.
“I’m one of many of the people who support it,” Corinne corrected her.
“What does your family think about your work?”
“They aren’t as enthusiastic as I am, I’m afraid, but they can’t criticize too much, since I’m working through the church. If they knew the truth, though, I don’t think they’d approve at all.”
“What do you mean, the truth?” Sarah asked in surprise.
Corinne shook her head sadly. “They believe we’re helping convert the Chinese so that when they return to China, they will win other converts there as well.”
“You don’t think they’re really sincere about converting to Christianity?”
“Oh, some of them are very sincere. It’s not that. It…it’s the part about them returning to China. Most of them have no intention of returning at all.”
“Do people really think they’ll all go back someday?” Sarah asked in amazement.
“As strange as it may seem, I believe they do,” Corinne confirmed. “Even though the Chinese have been coming to this country for decades, the government still doesn’t allow Chinese females to immigrate. After all these years, there are still only a handful of them in this country. That’s because the government believes that if the Chinese can’t bring their women over, they will be forced to return home.”
“And instead they’ve married American women,” Sarah said.
“Don’t let anyone here hear you say that,” Corinne chided, only half in jest.
“But surely everyone knows already.”
“Knowing about it and seeing it in your own church are two very different things,” Corinne said. “At our schoo
l, we have to be very careful that none of our female teachers gives the slightest appearance of interest in the Chinese men. If there was to be any romantic attraction, the scandal would probably compel us to close the school.”
“But surely—” Sarah began.
Corinne interrupted her. “I know what you’re thinking, that no respectable white woman would be attracted to a Chinese man, but that’s not the case at all. I said that I loved my students, and that’s because they are so sensitive and caring. I’ve rarely met such true gentlemen, and they treat females with the utmost respect. Girls who are accustomed to the rough manners of even the most well-bred white boys are quite taken with the Chinese manners.”
“So I’ve heard,” Sarah said.
“What do you mean?” Corinne asked in surprise.
“Did you know that I’m a midwife?”
“A midwife? Sarah, however did you manage that?”
“When I rebelled, I did a very good job of it,” Sarah said wryly. “I recently delivered a baby down in Chinatown, and I’ve gotten to know several women who married Chinese men.”
“Then you understand,” Corinne said with relief. “We had a case here…It was nipped in the bud, but it was almost the end of our school. The daughter of one of our teachers had been coming along to help her mother. She developed an attachment to one of the young men. I don’t know how serious it was, but her parents sent her off on a European tour the instant they discovered it. If word had gotten out…Well, as I said, it could have been tragic.”
“And yet the women I know are very happy with their choice of husband.”
“Perhaps they are, but the Chinese still suffer terrible persecution. Some of our students have been accosted and even beaten for daring to enter this neighborhood. It happens all over the city. Tormenting a Chinaman is considered great sport by far too many.”
“Yet they still come.”
“I told you, they’re determined to better themselves.”
Sarah thought about Charlie and George Lee and the lives they’d built for themselves and their families. She knew Corinne was right.
Murder In Chinatown Page 13
